May 30, 2013

Wang Jie is 56. He lives with his mother in the first floor of a house in the Chinese community of Flushing. Li Shuyun is now 87, she’s suffering from Alzheimer’s.Wang’s spent his life taking care of her -- he never got married. Wang works at a factory in Queens, repairing cell phones, earning minimum wage.

It may not be the American dream, but Wang says he’s okay with that.

"After the hell my family has been through," Wang tells me, "this is heaven."

I mentioned Justice Brown's opinion in the San Remo Hotel case. You can read that here--just scroll down to her dissenting opinion near the bottom. I also mentioned the California License Handbook, which you can read here. It includes such classics as the Inedible Kitchen Grease Transporter License, the Chiropractic Referral Service License, the Authorization to Sell Seed, the Guide Dog School License, and the Squid Boat Owner's Permit (which is different from a Market Squid Vessel Permit).

Update: Here's the podcast. Just to be clear, there's no actual law against reviewing movies without seeing them; it's just "unfair competition" to advertise a movie with fake reviews. But as the dissenting Justice in Rezec said, this is the most frivolous case ever...but it's the law.

Both Yglesias and Somin concede that their views are influenced by their political opinions. That’s understandable, but what’s interesting is that both of them are types of liberals. Yglesias is a modern liberal; Somin a classical liberal. And viewed as a whole, the Star Trek franchise is generally an expression of liberalism in its various phases since 1966. That makes Trek an interesting reflection of the history of liberalism in the United States.

Gene Roddenberry and his colleagues were veterans of World War II, who were then fighting the Cold War against a communist aggressor which members of their generation rightly regarded as an “evil empire.” Except for those who went so far left as to support the USSR—of which there were not a few—liberals of that time regarded Russian and Chinese communism with horror, and considered the western democracies as the only thing standing against worldwide totalitarian dictatorship. The best expression of this was John F. Kennedy’s inaugural address, which might as well have been written by the Ronald Reagan of a quarter century later. That address was devoted almost entirely to foreign relations—and to supporting those threatened with communist domination:

Let the word go forth from this time and place, to friend and foe alike, that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans—born in this century, tempered by war, disciplined by a hard and bitter peace, proud of our ancient heritage—and unwilling to witness or permit the slow undoing of those human rights to which this Nation has always been committed, and to which we are committed today at home and around the world. Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty.

Not only could Reagan have spoken these words; they could have been spoken by the James T. Kirk of the starship Enterprise. In episodes like “The Omega Glory” or “The Apple,” Kirk stands boldly, iconoclastically, for principles of universal freedom and against collectivism, ignorance, and passivity. In “Errand of Mercy,” Kirk literally cannot comprehend why the placid Organians would sit back and let themselves be enslaved into the bushido Klingon Empire. Such pacifism literally disgusts him. In “A Taste of Armageddon,” he actually forces two worlds to bomb each other. Because he loves war? Of course not. Because he will not allow these people to delude themselves about the harshness of the war they are fighting. Kirk, like Kennedy, recognized that a peace without justice and without freedom is not actually peace, but the misnamed stillness of death.

What do I know about proms? I didn't go to mine, 'cause girls don't like me (present wife excepted). But while I'm sure the boy was delighted, it just seems wrong somehow, this fad of swimsuit models accepting prom date requests. Many girls look forward to being the belle of the ball, or even prom queen (do they really do that?) and for a Sports Illustrated bikini girl to show up and totally focus the entire evening on herself seems unclassy to me.